Evanston Tries To End Reign Of `Drug Kingdom`

October 28, 1992|By Jon Hilkevitch and John Lucadamo. Tribune reporter Brian Cox contributed to this article.

Over the last eight months, undercover police visited an abandoned house in a part of Evanston known as the ``Drug Kingdom`` and repeatedly purchased cocaine and guns from members of a gang who held court there.

Police and federal agents returned to the ramshackle building shortly after daybreak Tuesday. And neither five battle-scarred pit bulls protecting the property nor the two sleepy occupants of the house at 1715 Payne St. were any match for a SWAT team led by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Authorities arrested a man and a woman, whom Evanston police identified as gang members, and confiscated five handguns and assorted drug

paraphernalia, including scales and glass vials that can be used to package cocaine. No drugs were found in the house.

Agents also shot one of the pit bulls, which was tethered to a doghouse, after it lunged at members of the SWAT team, police said.

The two arrests were part of a sweeping three-agency crackdown named

``Operation Hat-Trick`` that targeted 60 people within about a mile of Evanston Township High School. Police Chief Ernest Jacobi said the targets were gang members trafficking in drugs and weapons.

Beginning Monday night with the assistance of the ATF and Oak Park police, Evanston police arrested more than 20 of 34 suspects whom they had set up in previous drug buys since May. Of the remainder, federal prosecutors are reviewing charges, as are the Oak Park police, who participated in the eight- month operation.

Jacobi predicted the arrests will take a number of hard-core gang members from all echelons out of circulation for some time. But he said that Evanston residents shouldn`t be lulled into thinking that even if all 60 suspects are apprehended that this would put the gangs out of business.

Even so, residents on Payne Street said Tuesday it was about time the police took action against the illicit activity on their street.

``Those gangbangers got a lookout sitting outside that house 24 hours a day, and people are going in and out all the time,`` said a man who has lived in the neighborhood for 30 years, and who, like many others watching the raid, declined to identify himself.

``It didn`t used to be that way. That stuff needs to go or there`s no chance for this area.``

Robin Doby, who lives two doors away from the house that was raided, said: ``The drug people own this street, but maybe after today something finally is getting done.``

Doby said she bought her house two years ago in the hope that commercial development along nearby Green Bay Road would ``make the neighborhood up-and- coming.`` She said she hoped part of that rejuvenation would include the demolition of the suspected drug house and businesses moving into shuttered warehouses that dot the neighborhood.

She watched as police, choking on the odors emanating from inside, exited the garbage-filled house carrying boxes that included hundreds of vials, several precision scales, five handguns, ammunition and a rifle scope.

``This is by far the best-smelling thing coming out of that house,`` said an Evanston officer, pointing to a lit cigar in his mouth.

Around back, animal warden Bill Andrews was collaring the caged pit bulls and taking them one by one to his pickup. One pit bull was leaping and baring its teeth as a police dog searched for drugs under the house.

``Look how these animals have been marked (with scars) from being sent into the (fighting) pit,`` Andrews said.

An undisclosed number of Oak Park officers, unknown in Evanston, were used to make controlled buys from people suspected of drug dealing. The bulk of the arrests were made in Evanston, but several were made on Chicago`s Far North Side.

Jerry Singer, special agent with ATF, said a convicted felon arrested with a firearm or a drug dealer apprehended while armed will face federal charges.

Cook County State`s Atty. Jack O`Malley said 11 of those arrested face mandatory prison sentences if convicted. Seven were arrested while selling cocaine within 1,000 feet of the high school, a non-probationable felony. He said no students were involved.

Two others were charged with selling Class X amounts of cocaine, more than 15 grams; and the other two have previous drug convictions and therefore cannot receive probation, O`Malley said at a news conference at the Evanston police station.

Two juveniles were among those arrested. One will be charged as an adult and the other, a 14-year-old, will be charged in a juvenile petition, authorities said.

Although no cocaine was found at the Payne Street house, Jacobi said authorities hadn`t determined how much cocaine was confiscated Tuesday during searches at other homes. But they said undercover purchases have ranged from a quarter gram to two buys of an ounce each.

At the corner of Dodge Avenue and Church Street, near the location of some alleged drug buys, business owners said the area is plagued with gang activity.

One merchant said that neither of his public telephones has a number on it in an effort to discourage drug dealers from using electronic beepers to set up purchases using his phones. Another businessman said he was reluctant to call police out of fear of retribution.

Operation Hat-Trick follows a similar operation, Full-Press, in the spring of 1991 that led to the arrest of more than 25 people suspected of being street dealers. About 20 of those arrested were convicted.